Formentera hopes coastal moorage regulation scheme gets fresh impulse

foot 2020 fondejosConsell de Formentera president Alejandra Ferrer and environment councillor Antonio J. Sanz attended a presentation of findings from the first of several capacity studies piloted by Ports IB and the Balearic Islands’ Coastal Observation and Predictions System (SOCIB). The presentation was led by regional mobility minister Marc Pons and Ports IB director Cristina Barahona and saw the video participation of SOCIB director Joaquín Tintoré and SOCIB researcher Aina García.

SOCIB and Ports IB are required to carry out such a study as part of the public agencies’ drafting of their overarching strategy, which Mr Pons described as a “balanced, sustainability-based” plan forswearing expansions and growth of Balearic harbours.

“Formentera has done much to protect our coastlines”, asserted President Ferrer, highlighting consensus around the decision to eschew expansion of La Savina port, as well as the importance of finding a place for regular islanders, tourism and the environment. “We want residents to enjoy the harbour too”, she said, stressing the primacy of “quality” and of “avoiding the kind of massive projects our visitors have historically deplored”, not to mention the environment: “The strategy must also offer safeguards for posidonia in particular and our entire coastline in general.”

Mooring on Formentera
Efforts to establish a system of controlled moorage along local shores dates back to 2008. Ferrer described hopes that the management plan for Ses Salines nature reserve would provide “an impulse to approval of the regulated moorage plan”. The plan, which envisioned space for 883 watercraft, was first presented to the Govern balear in 2017.

Ferrer described the capacity study presented by the Govern today as “similar to our initial proposal, but with capacity for 925 boats”. She pointed out that the Balearic study was based exclusively on physical space, while Formentera’s initial study sought to measure the island’s “physical, environmental and scenic capacity”.

“We’re aware of just how unique our current situation is”, said Ferrer, insisting, “We want to make it clear to the Balearic government, as we have in the past, that what Formentera won’t support is economic recovery in the name of destruction and large-scale projects”. “Economic recovery must include protection of our natural resources, because they are our main economic asset”, she concluded.

13 November 2020
Communications Department
Consell de Formentera